Rumor: iPhone 4S coming this summer?

This story is part of our complete Apple WWDC coverage

Apple failed to make any mention of announcing a new i-handheld device at WWDC, but new rumors we’ve reported on suggest the wait may not be quite as long as we thought. We most recently heard Apple planned to launch the iPhone 4S in September, giving the iPhone 5 a 2012 release date. But according to Apple Insider, reports are making the rounds that Apple will introduce the iPhone 4S in late July or August. As expected, the device is likely to be nearly identical to the iPhone 4, except that it will sport an 8-megapixel camera and go without a SIM card.

As part of the move to get rid of the SIM card, the iPhone 4S will apparently be GSM and CDMA compatible – making it a world phone. Verizon CEO Fran Shammo recently said the iPhone 5 would be a world phone, and it would launch on his and AT&T’s network at the same time. However, seeing as Apple is notoriously secretive about its product launches, it wouldn’t be too surprising if Verizon was just operating off of what knowledge it did have, and assumed that the next product would be something called the iPhone 5.

There’s been a fair amount of confusion surrounding the naming of the coming i-devices: There have been reports of an iPhone 6, which in reality could be the iPhone 5 if people aren’t convinced or unaware of the iPhone 4S speculation. Samsung, which is requesting Apple hand over prototypes of coming products, has even been caught in the name confusion. In legal documents, the manufacturer simply says, “Whether the product will be known as the ‘iPhone 4S,’ ‘iPhone 5,’ or some other name.” But we digress: What’s important is that the world iPhone could be making an appearance within a couple of months.

According to reports in Macotakara, Apple will still wait until spring 2012 to introduce the iPhone 5 (or as the site refers to it, the coming “major new handset”).

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